


To err is human

by epsilonfive



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, but also fluff so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsilonfive/pseuds/epsilonfive
Summary: Lucifer has a nightmare about revealing himself to Chloe and it freaks him out. He tries to end not only their friendship, but the undeniable connection between them.





	To err is human

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for Deckerstar! Idea was given to me by my buddy chee. Super self indulgent. Hope you enjoy!

It takes longer than Lucifer had anticipated to dream about Chloe, but tonight he must be under a lucky star because he sees a blurred blonde ponytail some few feet in front of him.

Smoothing his – thankfully tasteful – suit sleeves, he ambles forward, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder. Maybe he’ll finally know what it’s like to give her one of his favourite human pleasures.

But as she turns and gives him one of those smiles, the ones that put the wonders of the world to shame, he feels the corners of his own mouth stretch across his face, and he knows it isn’t about that.

“I want to show you something,” He says, voice slightly distorted as it usually is in dreams, and it comes out as though someone else is making him say them, despite the fact that it’s what he wants, deep down.

She cocks her head and says something, but he can’t hear her.

Chloe looks inviting though, like she’s eager to see what he has to show her, no doubt believing it’s something… good.

It isn’t, but they’ve come so far, and like she’s told him, he wants to move forward, not backwards.

He can trust her now.

Something twists in his guts as soon as he begins to reveal himself to her, something screaming at him to stop, that it’s a mistake, but it’s too late.

Her face contorts into unbridled horror, and her eyes are wide and terrified as she gazes upon the true visage of Satan himself. Before he can reach out to her, before he can tell her he’s sorry or make up some kind of excuse, she’s stepping back.

Her hands are up defensively as though she expects him to attack any second, even though he would honestly rather die than hurt her on purpose. He tries to tell her this, but his throat constricts, and he can hardly breathe let alone speak in the din.

Each step she takes back from him is torture, and everything in him tells him to lurch forward, to take her in his arms and make things right, tell her to forget, but he doesn’t.

He should’ve known this would happen.

In fact, he did. How could he have been so stupid to think for even a moment that someone who makes his heart jump every time they looked at him would accept him, just like that? He was _Lucifer_. He was the literal _Devil_. He didn’t deserve somebody like Chloe Decker to look at his face, his true face, and still want to be with him.

She stops, looking at him with a mixture of betrayal and shock in her eyes, and in that moment Lucifer is pretty sure this experience tops all others in terms of pain; even falling.

He makes a move as if to get closer to her, and with that, she lets out a shriek, one that fills his brain and spreads throughout his whole body like a poison.

“Stay the hell away from me!” She shouts finally, her shaking, raised voice piercing the muffled atmosphere of the dream world as she turns on her heel and runs.

“Detective!” He calls after her, his voice coming out weak, as though he’s lost it to one of those diseases humans contracted. “Chloe!”

He jerks so violently out of his dream that he almost falls out of bed.

He’s panting and the sheets are soaked with a cold sweat, limbs shaking under the silky covers.

He raises his eyes heavenwards, and dearly wishes he could berate his father for this, but he can’t.

This is what free will is, the inability to control what one dreams about, and it was the whole reason for Lucifer’s attachment to Earth and his departure from Heaven.

For the first time in the many years he’s existed, he hates the one thing he fought for.

He hates his free will.

* * *

 

Chloe texts him at around seven am with the offer of picking him up on the way to work, and usually he jumps at the chance to get extra time with her, but not today. Today he has to avoid being too close, he has to limit their interactions to as little as possible. He would usually avoid going in all together when a problem arose, but he knew how swamped Chloe was lately, and had seen the dark circles beneath her eyes. She needs support right now, and he's sure he can offer it without falling prey to his desire to be around her.

It's ten am when he arrives, and he spots her at her desk, looking through a mountain of paperwork from their last case. She hasn't even begun on the new cases, so he figures he should have a look at those. Detective Douche was usually the one who would present something new, else they would stumble onto something themselves, but for some reason it hadn't been like that lately.

He strides in and picks up the pile of new cases, turning on his heel as soon as he has and planning to make a quick getaway before she calls to him.

"Lucifer! There you are!"

"Yes, hello Detective," He says cautiously, turning to give her a brief forced smile before facing away again. "I'll just have a look through these and I'll be right with you,"

"Wait! Can't you just do that here? And where have you been? I'm--"

"Must dash!" Already his strength is dwindling quickly, her seemingly wanting him close by already making it more difficult to stay away.

He can imagine her face easily as she watches him go.

Things continue in a similar fashion throughout the day, with the addition of him acting like he's in some kind of spy movie, checking around corners for Chloe and doing everything he can to avoid her while helping her at the same time. When she returns from lunch, she sees a neat pile of looked at case files, with a couple taken to the side which she might have interest in. She flicks through them, eyebrows raising in pleasant surprise as she does.

Her mouth twitches at the corners and Lucifer, watching from his hiding place, feels his chest ache. She's smiling at something he's done, and it makes him feel that rush he gets whenever he does something good for her; a rush that he could never get from any human, nor any of their drugs and pleasures. She looks up then, eyes scanning the department as if searching for him, and he ducks back behind the wall to avoid her gaze.

Luckily for him, no one's noticed his strange behaviour, and he's managed to avoid her for almost the entire day. Just an hour to go, and he'll be able to leave and prepare for the next one.

* * *

 

Lucifer's not one to hole himself up at home, much less somewhere like Lux which is supposed to be a hot spot, but here he is, pouring himself a rather large whiskey with full intent to drink it. It remains untouched however, and he tilts the glass this way and that, watching as the liquid swills around inside it.

He hears the thump of the party downstairs, and his eyes drift towards the elevator for a moment, part of him wondering if he should go down and drink and dance and sing his pain away, but the thought dies almost as soon as it begins. What would be the point? He would just end up waking the next morning knowing that the one person he wanted more than anything he could never have anyway, and personally he wasn't interested in passing out and being free from the ache only to have it return in full force.

He's used to pain, of course. Many different types. Sometimes, secretly, he thinks he may even deserve it. But nothing in the past comes close to this; this cold, sinking feeling.

He's about to call it quits and collapse onto his bed despite the fact that the night is young before he hears the ding of the elevator. As he looks over, his heart leaps into his throat and settles there, beating hard and slow like it's struggling to keep on going.

Chloe stands there, arms folded, her face set into one of determination. She steps out, and Lucifer scrambles to make some kind of excuse not to look at her despite the fact that she's the most beautiful creature he's ever seen, and most of the time he does whatever he can to have a reason to stare at her.

"Would love to chat, but I have to--"

"Lucifer," It's sharp and clear and he almost winces at the force of it. There's no way she's letting him just get out of this. "Wait. Turn around, look at me, and talk to me."

Begrudgingly, he does as he's told and turns slowly to face her, forcing himself to put on his trademark smirk.

"Very well. I'm here, I'm looking at you, and I'm open to conversation,"

"Really? That's funny, cause it hasn't felt like that all day," She says with raised eyebrows, hands moving to settle at her hips. "What the hell is going on with you? Yesterday was fine and I thought we were... I mean, I thought things were getting better." She finishes, her harsh tone softening into one of hurt.

"I assure you I don't know what you're talking about," He says, raising his glass and taking a sip before turning from her to lean his back against the bar as casually as he can. "Are you sure you aren't just suffering from a crush, Detective?"

She looks like she wants to throttle him then, and he can't blame her. Not only is he avoiding and deflecting, he's projecting his own feelings onto her. But that's what he does. It's how he protects himself, it's how he deals with entirely human - well, almost - conversations such as these. He's gotten better that's for sure, but he's still pretty clueless when it comes to the way of humans.

Love, however, is something he's pretty sure he understands now. Or at least feels. According to those cheesy romance songs and everything humans say about love, he's been in it with Chloe for a while. But he's learned that being in love doesn't make you worthy, and it doesn't make you better. It makes you a damn fool, and now more than ever, he needs to rid himself of it.

"Lucifer. Please be serious. Did I... have I done something?" The concern in her voice is almost as painful to Lucifer as the ache in his chest that's been present since that terrible dream, and he wants more than anything to move forward and take her in his arms and tell her that he's an idiot and she has done nothing but bring him starlight and excitement and feeling into his life, but he can't do that.

He has to hold himself back for both their sakes.

"Not at all," He says, trying to ignore the break in his voice as he sets his drink down on the bar surface. "Do you want to help yourself to a drink?"

He barely has time to turn to face her again before she's practically teleported to him and grabbed his arm.

"Stop deflecting! Just be honest with me for once!"

"Detective! I am always honest," Lucifer says hotly, facing her as the grin fades from his face. "I never lie! You know me, you know I don't!"

"Then tell me what's going on! Tell me what I did, or what you did, or whatever the hell happened to make you act like this!"

"Like what?"

"Like..." She lets go of his arm. "Like you don't wanna be around me. Like all you want is to be collegues."

"...Maybe that would be for the best."

He immediately regrets saying those words. There is nothing in the cosmos that is worse than Chloe Decker hurt to the point where she's speechless, to the point where the light in her eyes goes out, and to know that he's caused it... He might as well have become exactly what legends and depictions have painted him as.

She swallows hard to suppress her emotions like he's seen her do many times before taking a step back.

"Why?"

"I don't think I should tell--"

"No! You don't get to just... say something like that and not give me a reason!"

Lucifer opens his mouth to speak, but something inside stops him. Probably because it would be a lie.

But he couldn't tell her the whole truth either.

He's kind of stuck.

"I think it would keep things... simple,"

There.

That's no lie.

"When has it ever been simple between us?" Chloe says as she raises her hands in exhasperation and lets them fall to snap back at her side. "When has it ever been easy or straight forward?"

"I just mean that the less you know about me, the less... close you are to me, the better it will be for you,"

"What about for you?"

"That's irrelevant. The important thing is that you avoid as much pain as possible. Especially if... it would be because of me."

She gives him a look that he rarely sees; a quizzical look coupled with an expression he's seen in humans when they look at their loved ones. She seemed to do that whenever the quips and sneers were stripped away and only his feelings remained, and that look always made him feel something he couldn't explain right in his very core. That made it dangerous.

"I think I know you well enough to know that while you have hurt me, it wasn't... intentional. It was a side effect. It was a mistake. We all make them,"

"Detective, I am the _Devil_. Don't make excuses for me. Don't make me out to be anything other than the most sinful creature to have walked the Earth,"

Infuriatingly, she rolls her eyes.

"Lucifer, if you're really as bad as you say then I hate to think of what saints are supposed to be like. You are kind--"

He snorts and looks away.

"You are. You're sensitive deep down and when you're not being a complete ass, you're actually kinda fun to be around. I told you before," She moves towards him again carefully and touches his arm, this time gently. "You make me feel safe and I trust you. No one else makes me feel like that. Don't you understand? That's why I can't just let you throw it all away."

She's making this so much harder than it has to be, and Lucifer's being forced to fight against his deepest desires, something which he had always advocated against when it came to not only humans, but himself. He never expected her to be like this, to say the things that he feels himself, to look at him like he means something, like he's precious to her, and it makes it all the more difficult to do what he has to do.

"Chloe..." She smiles at him, and he almost gives in. "I can't. I can't lose you,"

"You're not gonna lose me,"

"You don't know that," He carefully puts a hand on hers and pulls it off, moving away so his back is to her. If he looks at her any longer he might not be able to do this. "If you knew the truth about me, if you saw... what I really am, you would walk away if you had even a shred of common sense, and I know you have more than most."

He hears her stride over to him and maneuver around his body to face him.

"I told you before, Lucifer. I know who you are, and I'm still here. Doesn't that mean anything?"

"You know many things Detective, but this is not one of them. You can't be certain you'd ever want to associate with me again,"

"You can't be certain I wouldn't,"

He sighs loudly. She could be so stubborn sometimes. She and Father would probably get along.

"Let's just forget it," He says hopefully, but that's like standing in the desert and asking for rain. "Please. Don't make this any worse than it has to be,"

"Don't you trust me?"

"For a human, you're more trustworthy than most celestial beings,"

"Then why can't you trust me with this? You don't think I can make the decision of whether or not I can handle what you want to show me for myself? I'm a big girl,"

"This is different. It's not a human matter. I'm not human," He says after a beat, and she scoffs and rolls her eyes again. Lucifer's amazed they haven't gotten lost in the back of her head. "See, this is another thing! You don't believe me. So when you're proven wrong, you'll be even more inclined to head for the hills!"

That seems to have touched a nerve, and he can see a tick in her forehead as she crosses her arms again.

"So that's it then? It's all over?"

"I didn't say I would stop working cases with you,"

"I'm sorry but I can't work with someone who doesn't trust me, or who I can't trust in return. I can't work with someone when I don't know if they have my back or not,"

Lucifer swallows the lump in his throat.

"So... we should just... end it?"

Chloe's whole body seems to sag, and this defeated look begins to spread across her face.

"Are you sure that's what you want? Us to not even... be friends? Just... forget everything we've been through and how far we've come? I don't wanna lose this, but I'm not gonna play the desperate girl either. Think about it, be absolutely sure, cause when I leave here today, I'm not coming back."

Lucifer opens his mouth and makes a motion as if to move forward and she looks at him with such expectation that he has to force himself to think back to his dream which felt more like a premonition to stop himself from not going through with what he knows he should. He looks at her face and imagines that expression again, and it's all he can do not to gasp at the sharp pain in his chest.

He ends up not saying anything, and eventually she nods somberly, making her way to the elevator. She turns inside it and looks at him, sadness etched on her face. Reaching up to press the button, her finger hovers over it as though there was some small hope that he would change his mind.

He's not sure what kind of expression he's displaying, but it makes her eyes flash with the threat of tears. She pushes the button and he sees her head drop a little as the elevator doors close.

He makes his way over to the bar with the intention of drinking a bottle or ten of alcohol, but instead he leans against it, his legs weak. Before he realises it he's sliding down to sit at the floor, feeling like there's not enough strength left in him to even stand up right. Was this what a broken heart felt like?

He used to be pretty sure he knew how that felt before, but nothing came close to this. Was this how Chloe had felt when he'd disappeared and brought Candy back? Surely not. Then that would mean that she was in love with him too, and that couldn't be possible. While he knew he was a catch and good in bed, he was otherwise clueless when it came to treating people right, he was pretty sure. Even Amenadiel seemed to have a better grasp on the whole human thing, and he had been more of God's little pet than anyone. Lucifer had done nothing to deserve the love of someone like Chloe.

He's never felt such a sense of hopelessness, even when he'd fallen and it felt like he was alone and would be for the rest of his existence. The thoughts are plaguing him and making his insides twist horribly. Perhaps he should just... go home. Go back to where he does what he does best; hurt and torture people. Maybe that's all he's good for.

He might've blacked out for a moment because the ding of the elevator makes him start, and he looks blearily up at it, expecting some kind of guest he can use to drown the misery with, or maybe even Mazikeen.

But it's Chloe.

As Lucifer's eyes come into focus, he notices her own are red and her hair has come even more loose. For a moment she stands there, watching as he struggles to his feet wordlessly, seemingly trying to hold herself back from doing whatever she came back for.

It breaks eventually and she lunges forward, running towards him like he's the one thing that's going to keep her alive and basically launching herself at him. He's glad in that moment that she's small because he has difficulty keeping upright as she clings to the back of his suit jacket and snuffles against his chest.

"Please, Lucifer," She says in a cracked voice, the sound muffled slightly. "I know I'm being selfish but I can't... I won't let this go! Let you go,"

Lucifer's stomach drops and he feels a slight tingling in his his fingertips, as though her words have made him numb.

"Can we just try? Please? I know what I said, but I... I'm ready for the consequences," She adds with a finality to her tone that tells him she's serious about it.

He's not quite sure what to do or say. Chloe was usually very composed unless there was an emergency or someone she cared about was in danger, seeing this level of emotion from her is almost new to him. Maybe, like him, she bottled up more than she let on. Maybe she too, avoided and deflected whenever she could.

After a few moments of quiet save for their heavy breaths, Chloe pulls back so that she can look up at him. Thick tear tracks stain her face, and her eyes sparkle like the stars he created. His hands, which have been hanging uselesssly at his side, slowly come up to rest on her face, a thumb stroking away the stray tear that slides out of her right eye.

She smiles at him, and he's gone.

As though he has absolutely no control over his actions, he leans in and kisses her gently, like it's the last one he'll ever give, and he feels her tense in surprise before relaxing and reciprocating, hands sliding down to his arms to curl her fingers in the fabric of Lucifer's sleeves. It feels like time as slowed, almost like Amenadiel is nearby with his powers rekindled.

Eventually they break apart, and Chloe looks up at him with galaxies in her eyes.

"After all that," She says finally, slightly breathless. "Isn't this a bad idea?"

Definitely. It's a terrible idea. He was so close, regardless of how much it hurt, but she had to come back and remind him that the very thing that made his existence bearable, that filled the void he was so desperately always trying to destroy with booze and sex and drugs, was her. Her and nothing else. How can he go on from here? How can he risk showing her his true self when now it feels like there's even more to lose?

"Maybe," He says after a time, fingers ghosting over her hair and down to rest at her neck. "But since when has the Devil been known for good ideas?"

She huffs a laugh, closing her eyes for a time as she usually did at this kind of talk from him before looking at him again.

And then she says something he never thought anyone would ever say.

"I'm glad he isn't."

 


End file.
